Hamilton police officer on trial for breach of trust, obstruction of justice and drug trafficking

WATCH ABOVE: Hamilton Police Service Det. Const. Craig Ruthowsky, who is currently suspended, was arrested during a Toronto gang investigation in 2015 and was allegedly heard on wiretaps talking to drug dealers. Catherine McDonald reports.

Det. Const. Craig Ruthowsky, a suspended guns and gangs unit officer from the Hamilton Police Service, is now on trial for allegedly giving sensitive police information to drug traffickers in exchange for cash.

The 45-year-old officer has been out on bail since being arrested in June 2015 as a part of Project Pharaoh, a Toronto police gang investigation into gun and drug trafficking in the city’s west end.

Assistant Crown Attorney John Pollard told jurors on Monday that Ruthowsky was part of a “pay for protection” scheme in which he would tell a Hamilton drug dealer, whose identity is protected by a publication ban, the locations of pending search warrants and covert investigative techniques used by police officers in exchange for $20,000 a month.

Ruthowsky met the drug dealer who trafficked mostly in cocaine in August 2011 after the dealer was arrested. The dealer told Ruthowsky he wanted to be able to conduct his drug dealing business without interference from the police and wanted to know who was informing on him. He said he believed Ruthowsky would be open to an offer for cash for protection.

The jury heard that Toronto police investigating Project Pharaoh were first made aware of Ruthowsky’s involvement with drug traffickers when they were listening to a wiretapped phone call on May 24, 2015.

The drug dealer who had the relationship with Ruthowsky called him after a fellow drug trafficker told him his driver “was robbed.”

On May 22, 2015, the driver had received a shipment of two kilograms of cocaine in the parking lot of Sherway Gardens. A Toronto police team doing surveillance on the drug buy watched as the driver met with a supplier before receiving the cocaine in a plastic shopping bag. The driver then stowed the bag in the lock box of his car. The driver went into the shopping mall and when he came out, the cocaine was gone.

The crown told the jury Toronto Police had obtained a general warrant and seized the drugs by smashing the back window of the car, prying open the lock box and removing the drugs from inside the car. The driver was not arrested because police did not want to tip their hand that he was being watched and that investigators were listening to him and his boss.

Day 1 of the trial for Det Cst Craig Ruthowsky from @HamiltonPolice arrested during 2015 gang raid called Project Pharaoh. Tonight how the crown alleges the 45 year old was part of a “pay for protection” scheme. Drug dealers got sensitive police info in return for cash payments pic.twitter.com/y9Zlrf07oJ

During the phone call with Ruthowsky, the dealer described the situation at Sherway Gardens and asks if the cops could be involved.

“Do they do stuff like that, like just take it and maybe charge someone later?” he can be heard asking in a telephone conversation recorded by police under the authorization of a judge, which is expected to be played during the trial.

Ruthowsky explained police do that during big projects and would need a general search warrant. Ruthowsky suggested it’s likely an inside job, but goes on to describe why police use general warrants.

“Whoever was doing the project would have to have been following him, would have to have known where he went in the Gardens.”

Explaining how Ruthowsky became involved in actual cocaine trafficking, the crown alleged that he went to a laboratory in Mississauga after the drug dealer explained he was paying tens of thousands of dollars for a cutting agent on the grey market to mix with his cocaine, but didn’t know what it was.

Ruthowsky allegedly took a small package of powder provided to him to the lab used by police, submitted the powder under his own name and paid $1,000 to have it tested. The cutting agent was identified as phenacetin.

He conveyed the information to the drug dealer, who was then able to purchase the cutting agent wholesale over the internet. It saved the dealer thousands of dollars and the crown alleged it made his drug dealing operation more profitable.

When Ruthowsky’s boss asked him about the allegations in 2012 after he was suspended from his job, Ruthowsky explained, “I wanted to make think I was a dirty cop and that I’d do that stuff for him.”